Sports Shorts

“Disa and data” as one old-time Boston sportswriter used to label his note columns. I forget who that was. There was also “Here and There” and “Hither and Yon” subheads for this sort of fare. Anybody remember them – and were they in the Record, the American, the Herald, the Traveler, the Morning Globe, or the Evening Globe?

Rivalries
Excellent Bob Ryan column in the January 24 Sunday Globe about the Tom Brady-Peyton Manning “rivalry.” Bob has seen it all during his sportswriting career. He is spot-on when he says that this Tom-Peyton thing just ain’t the same as long-running, head-to-head competitions like Russell-Chamberlain, Bird-Johnson, and Evert-Navratilova.

As Bob points out, Tom and Peyton chart parallel courses. They don’t play defense. Ryan calls this a “manufactured” rivalry, and to a great extent it is. It’s largely, though not entirely, a creation of the television producers.

Not long ago, a producer told me that one of his primary tasks in planning the broadcasts was figuring out the “story lines” they’d follow during the game. There are usually two or three that TV tries to play up so as to add a little extra drama to the coverage.

Examples of these hoped-for story lines might be a recently-traded player returned to town to confront his former teammates; coaches who clearly don’t like each other glaring into the cameras; the best offense runs up against the best defense; a player’s comeback from a debilitating injury, etc.

In the case of Tom and Peyton, the TV people hardly even had to work at it. They just put up all those graphics with the statistical comparisons. The only things that were more numerous on the AFC Championship show were the cell phone service ads.

Sometimes the contest evolves the way they want; sometimes it doesn’t. This time it didn’t. It wasn’t a quarterback shootout. The real story was the way the Denver defense overwhelmed the Patriots’ offensive line. Another unexpected twist was having one of the best kickers of all time blow an extra-point try.

But back to the “rivalry.” As football goes, and as Ryan also states, this is as good as it gets. Tom and Peyton are two of the best ever. They are in the twilight of their careers, and they won’t ever again get a chance to perform on the same stage with so much at stake.

And we in Boston have been lucky to have ringside seats for this and for the Larry-Magic and Russell-Chamberlain.

So our guy and our team didn’t come out on top this time. That’s okay. This is Peyton’s last shot. I hope he wins the Super Bowl. And the sun will come up tomorrow.

Coaches

It’s almost time for the Beanpot. Will we finally see a Harvard-Northeastern championship game? This could be the year.

The college hockey world has been justifiably lavish in its praise of Boston College coach Jerry York. Jerry has another very good team this year, and he just earned his 1,000th career victory.

But on a shorter horizon, let’s not overlook the fantastic job that Jim Madigan is doing at Northeastern this season. The Huskies lost three of their best players – Kevin Roy, Dalen Hedges, and Dustin Darou – during the first half. At one point, the record was 1-11-2. It was enough to make any team lose heart and to start mailing it in.

But “Mad Dog” somehow held it all together. He dipped into his reserves, shuffled his lines about constantly, and kept the team working hard. Since losing 4-3 to BC before Christmas, the Huntington Hounds have won seven games and tied one – as of this writing. Roy and Darou are back in the lineup.

Northeastern was in the Beanpot final last year against BU and lost in overtime. The two of them play in the second game of the opening round this year. The Terriers, Eagles, and Harvard are all having good seasons. The Huskies are the only one of the four teams that will enter the 2016 tournament with an overall losing record.

But it’s long past time (since 1988) for Northeastern to win another Beanpot title. If ever there was a dark horse, it’s this year’s Huskies.